Morocco’s Ivendi disrupting country’s real estate market

Moroccan startup Ivendi is disrupting the North African country’s real estate market by offering an online platform that allows people to buy and sell houses.

Launched earlier this year, Ivendi has already served over 150 homeowners as it looks to “Uber-ise” real estate transactions in Morocco.

“We provide the tools and necessary expertise for a fixed price to help owners find a buyer for their house without paying a percentage on the sale price,” founder Hicham Lahlou told Disrupt Africa.

“We target owners who have posted an advert on a listing website, we offer to help them estimate the right market price, prepare an attractive advert, and distribute in over 20 websites and on social media to gain visibility.”

The startup, which is positioning itself as an online alternative to real estate agencies, is self-funded, but has received the assistance of accelerators such as Réseau Entreprendre Maroc and New Work Lab to grow faster.

“We have had steady growth since launching. We are working on educating our customers about this innovative approach through online and offline marketing,” Lahlou said.

Ivendi is certainly tapping into a growing niche. There are an estimated 150,000 real estate transactions per year in Morocco, a number that has doubled in size in the last eight years.

So far, Lahlou and his team have focused on Casablanca, which represents 30 per cent of the market.

“We are looking to expand to other cities in Morocco to reach 100 new subscriptions per month in 2018. We want to duplicate the same model in other countries where the market is similar in terms of size and customer behaviour, like Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Tunisia,” he said.

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Passionate about the vibrant tech startups scene in Africa, Tom can usually be found sniffing out the continent's most exciting new companies and entrepreneurs, funding rounds and any other developments within the growing ecosystem.